Marcus talks through his customers' experience
Marcus’s customer journey
Marcus likes to respond initial enquiries quickly, ideally within an hour. He then moves on to trying to setup a Zoom call. As photography is visual, having a visual call is really
important. That call is all about listening not selling. Zoom also means ideas can be shared visually.
After this Marcus will send out a quote, which is done automatically using his CRM. So Marcus doesn’t really talk much about pricing in that initial call, that comes in with the quote goes out.
If the job goes ahead Marcus sets up another Zoom call before the shoot. This is a very creative call, talking about clothes, props and locations. It’s also a great way to get clients used to working you before you even meet.
People don’t like being photographed.
Marcus think in the UK people would prefer to go to the dentist than have their photograph taken. That means photographers need lots of...
Techniques to relax people
Chatting to them
Ask them about what people do, what they did at the weekend etc. All the classic questions to try and engage people.
Get people involved in the process
Shooting tethered means subjects can see the results of the photographs on the screen. They can then engage much more actively with the photography.
Ask them about clothes, props and angles.
Things Marcus does
Observe
Marcus observes people intently. He is looking for things
they naturally do and then asks them to do those in the photos. It might be a way they hold their head or a way they hold their hands.
Mirror
This is either you showing them something and ask them to
follow it. Or even better if you can quickly build rapport you can get them to just automatically copy you. So for example if you cross your arms they do it to.
Direct
This is the classic of the photographer telling the subject
what to do.
After the shoot
Initially Marcus narrows the photos down to about forty or fifty photos that he sends to the client via an online platform. He has found sending more than this just confuses the client. These photos have had a light edit, but not much more. From then what happens depends on the client. Some keep all the images, some make a selection.
